1. Field of the invention
The invention starts from a process for separating vaporous heavy metal compounds from a carrier gas and desubliming them, in which the vaporous heavy metal compounds formed in a melting furnace are discharged together with the carrier gas as a gas/vapor mixture from this melting furnace and then desublimed. In particular, it also relates to an apparatus for carrying out this process, having a melting furnace with heating elements, in which a carrier gas forms a gas/vapor mixture with the vaporous heavy metal compounds, and having a discharge opening for the gas/vapor mixture, which leads to a cooling device.
2. Discussion of Background
It is known that vaporous heavy metal compounds can be discharged from melting furnaces by means of a carrier gas. When cooling of the discharged gas/vapor mixture then takes place in a cooling device, the vaporous heavy metal compounds are desublimed and a precipitate deposits in the cooling device. This precipitate must be removed from time to time, which can be carried out only by scraping out, with a comparatively large manual effort. This precipitate can be processed further only after this has been done. This process is too involved for large-scale industrial application.